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I was in a department store a while ago (Macys? Kohls?) in the mens wear department, and another man in there was asking a salesman to find him some black cargo-pants. Made the poor guy run down to the stockroom, only to come back and report that there just weren’t any. Honestly, cargo pants? in 2014? Cargo pants haven’t been au courant for at least two years; you haven’t been able to buy them for even longer. Even here in the provinces.

And good riddance, I say, to cargo pants. They were never any good for carrying cargo–that is, for sticking anything in those pockets adhered to the legs of the pants. But they were baggy; yes, they were baggy, and I think that was the whole appeal of cargo pants: they were so baggy, that they could hide the shape of the pudgy pear who was wearing them. Same with all the “loose-fit” pants. What does that mean, “loose-fit”? Same with “full-cut”. It means, “Cut for the big fat ass of Americans.”

I was recently in Rome for a while. Roman men do not wear “full-cut” or “loose-fit jeans. No, they wear regular jeans, which are cut to fit the body of a regular man-type person. And they look good, like regular men. Men’s clothing should men fit It’s not right to make a man look like a slob.

Slacks should descend only to the level of the shoes; they should not be bunched up at the bottom of the leg, as if one were wearing a size too long. And the new “skinny” look? Ridiculous, stick-figure grotesquery turning the legs into twigs.

The behind should not be like a deflated balloon. Slacks should fit the curves of the buttocks. The brand Bonobos has it about right, as far as the back of the pants has it about right; but they get the front all wrong. It’s what’s up front that counts, as the old cigarette commercial said.

Why hide our natural shape? Birds don’t try to hide their plumage, and what we have there is our own natural plumage. Why do we stand upright? One reason is to be able to carry things in our hands. Another is to help us run faster. Another, to appear larger and intimidating to our enemies. Forgotten is another main reason: genital display. It’s a mating advantage: Look what I got! We should be proud of that. Further, comfort would indicate that the loose, baggy look is not only obnoxious, but uncomfortable. It simply does not feel good to have your genitals swinging freely, ready to be squished the moment you sit down or cross your legs.

Bring back the codpiece! The codpiece will cozy your genitals, while providing a display unit worthy of a real man. It’s comfy, and practical: protective, yet proud. The codpiece is a family-jewel-box display case, and a sign that we will not be intimidated into hiding ourselves behind swaths of useless baggy fabric.

This morning I was sitting outside on our back porch drinking my coffee. It was a lovely, sunny morning, a few fair-weather clouds in the sky, the birds chirping happily in the background, some of them quarelleling at the birdfeeder; a perfectly normal summer morning.

Suddenly, there was a “screek, screek, screek” call in the air, and all the birds seemed to hide in the bushes, huddling down under the nearest overhanging branch. I looked up into the sky, and there was a hawk, circling, circling above.

That afternoon, I was watching the hummingbirds. We think of hummers as gentle creature, but they are viscious with each other; each bird has to have complete control of the feeder; although several could feed at a time, only one must have control, and will abandon any ability to feed itself, in order to chase the others away.

A while later, the mallard duck appeared. It is a female mallard. A few years ago, a mating couple appeared, to pluck the new sprouts from the earth beneath our feeder. Then they had four little chicks, cute little yellow fluff balls. After a week, there were only two little fluff balls. Then there were no more fluff balls .

Always, the drake, the male, had come with the hen, the female. And as she ate, he stood guard, watching for danger. Ireally anthropomorphic.

Then last year, the drake didn’t appear. Now it’s just the female. So, I wonder what happened to the female. I wonder what happened to the chicks.

In a large planting pot near our porch, a Carolina Wren had built a nest…both the male and female had made trip after trip, dragging twigs and grass to create a veritable cave. Then t..he wren laid an egg. The egg lies there still, but the wren disappeared long ago, probably scared off by the sounds of our human activity.

This evening, I was agakn sitting on my porch (I do a lot of sitting, where I do my writing), and the flock of mourning doves, who like to forage beneath and in my feeders, suddenly took off in a loud flapping of wings, and the next moment, WHAM a brown shape shot down from the sky, grabbed something in the corner of the yard, and in an instant flew off.